Here's the cousin of yesterday's Continental, a Mercury Marquis (or Grand Marquis) from '75-'77. It's hard to pick the year because they hardly changed over that time. Its current owner wants you to know it's packing the 460 V-8.
This was the pinnacle of size for FoMoCo sedans. The mid-'70s Continental, Marquis, and LTD were enormous cars. The final year before the downsizing, a '78 Grand Marquis with the 460cid mill stretched 229 inches between the bumpers and tipped the scales at over 4600 pounds. That's nearly two feet longer than a current base F-150.
In the early '80s my mom's trusty Malibu wagon gasped its last and my folks bought the Mercury Colony Park station wagon the neighbors across the street were selling, basically a Grand Marquis that could transport a whole soccer team. Us kids thought it was cool because it had every plush-bottomed luxo feature in Ford's arsenal at the time. Alas, that experiment lasted only a week or so, if I recall correctly, before mom refused to continue trying to negotiate parking lots and narrow streets with that four-wheeled supertanker.
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